Searching the World’s Herbaria: A System for Visual Identification of Plant Species

1. Searching the World’s Herbaria: A System for Visual Identification of Plant Species Peter N. Belhumeur1, Daozheng Chen2, Steven Feiner1, David W. Jacobs2, W. John Kress3, Haibin Ling4, Ida Lopez3, Ravi Ramamoorthi1, Sameer Sheorey2, Sean White1, and Ling Zhang3 1Columbia University,2 University of Maryland,3 National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 4Temple University http://herbarium.cs.columbia.edu • Demonstrations • US Congressional Office Building • Smithsonian Institution Congressional Night • National Geographic Society’s BioBlitz • Microsoft Faculty Summit • Science Pavilion at NMNH (Smithsonian) • Field Studies: Plummers Island and Forest of VA • Overview • Accelerate specimen identification by • 1.Photograph Leaf • Leaf photographed on plain background • GPS coordinates, date/time, etc. saved • Photograph and digitize herbaria • Make data available in the field • Automate species search • Build and test prototype field guide • 2. Segmentation • E-M using saturation and value • Domain heuristics • Random sampling for real-time • Type Specimen Digital Collection • 90,000 Type Specimens (1/4 of all plant species) • Digitized and available online and on DVD • 3. Recognition • Inner Distance Shape Context • Fast Nearest Neighbor search • Histogram smoothing • 4. Visualization and Matching • Specimen and ranked results displayed • Zoomable interface for inspection • Geocoded, time-stamped results recorded • Future Goals • Woody plants of United States • Mobile phone system • Tropical flora • Collection of Isolated Leaves • Flora of Plummers Island, near Washington, DC 5,013 leaves of 157 species • Woody Plants of Baltimore-Washington, DC 7,481 leaves of 245 species • Trees of Central Park, NYC 4,320 leaves of 144 species Recognition Results Funded in part by NSF Grant IIS-03-25867